Jade Spider Commandship (Ship)
Description Jade Spider Commandships were designed at the same time as Jade Spiders, and are intended to serve as mobile command centres from which the Jade Spider raiders operate. In addition, the Jade Spider Commandship is a deadly, if clumsy, vessel in combat. These ships resemble the smaller Jade Spiders in most respects, except for the fact that they are designed to carry as many as 5 Jade Spiders docked on their backs and under their bellies (3 are carried on top of the abdomen, and 2 below). The only entryways into the ship are through the drill assembly (which is significantly bigger than that of the Jade Spider - in operation it causes 2d6+2 hull points of damage, a Hull Holed critical hit, a second random critical hit, and as many as 3 drow can fit side-by-side in the boarding tunnel), and through heavily defended hatches at the upper and lower landing pads. Each landing pad is defended by a heavy ballista turret. The grappling ram of the Jade Spider Commandship is strengthened to the point where it can be used as a piercing ram if the helmsman desires. Jade Spider Commandships carry larger, more powerful vresions of the web-casters used by their smaller brethren. These web-casters work exactly like those found on Jade Spiders, except they require more drow to operate them, and they create a Web effect with double the normal area of effect, and with a duration as if it was cast by a 9th level mage. The head of the Jade Spider Commandship has a normal deck layout, like any other ship, but the large abdomen is one huge cavernous region, which is filled with 'stalactites' hanging from the ceilings towards the gravity plane which bisects the cavern. These stalactites are hollowed out and used by the drow in the same way that real stalactites are used in most drow caverns in the underdark. In this way the interior of a Jade Spider Commandship resembles a small drow city. Crew Jade Spider Commandships usually carry between 50 and 75 drow of various stations. There is a high percentage of priestesses of Lolth, although battle-mages and warriors are also well represented. The command structure on one of these vessels tends to be as chaotic and dangerous as the politics of any drow enclave, although the captain (always a high-level priestess of Lolth) is generally the unquestioned mistress of the ship. Below the captain, however, the officers of various ranks play a game of shifting alliances and backstabs, all in an effort to gain personal power. It is rare for even the lowliest crewmember to be able to steer completely clear of this. There will typically be between 20 and 40 slaves of various races aboard a Jade Spider Commandship, and sometimes the captain will have one or more advisors of other races. These advisors may be illithids, tanar'ri, beholders, or almost any other intelligent and evil race, as long as the advisor is powerful enough to avoid becoming a target of an assassination attempt from one of the ship's officers. Jade Spider Commandships typically carry 4d12+4 jade spiders on the exterior hull. Ship Uses Commandship: Jade Spider Commandships are too rare and expensive to see use as anything other than a command vessel. These craft send their Jade Spiders to raid enemies, while remaining at a safe distance, often lurking far away in an asteroid belt. Ambitious officers of lower ranks often volunteer to leave the Commandship to take command of a smaller Jade Spider on a mission, since leading successful raids tends to be the best way for a junior officer to be catch the attention of the captain and be promoted. Instances of Jade Spider Commandships entering into combat are rare, and tend to result from a vessel finding the Commandship's hiding place. On very rare occasions, Jade Spider Commandships will go on important raids where heavy resistance is expected, although it is unheard of for such a raid to occur without at least 5 Jade Spiders supporting their parent craft. Other Configurations While the interior cavern of each Jade Spider Commandship is different, otherwise no different configurations have been encountered for the Jade Spider Commandship, for the same reasons that there is only one configuration for the Jade Spider.